pay off my debts

I just paid off one of my cards. :) Admittedly, my parents lent me some of the money, to pay back to them over the next year, but at least they aren’t charging me 18.99% interest. Damn card just arbitrarily doubled my rate earlier this year. I’m glad I’m not paying them anymore.

The tax refund (bigger than expected!) and the fact that my husband will be getting essentially double income (severance checks from his last job as well as checks from his new job) for two months should help to pay down some of the credit cards. We’d also like to move to a home with lower rent, so we can pay down even more debt and start saving for a down-payment for a house. We’ll see.

but it still feels good. I called two of my credit card companies and got them to waive the late fees that had shown up this month (both for very legitimate reasons – one payment was due on a Saturday, but didn’t post til Monday, and the other was posted after 3pm – I thought 5pm was the cutoff). That’s almost $80 in fees I now DON’T have to pay. I also switched my car insurance, lowering my payments by $89/month AND got a fat rebate check from my old insurance for canceling. :)

We’ve had some unexpected bills, etc, so I haven’t been able to pay as much toward my cards and loans as I would like, but every little bit helps.

I can no longer say that I have no credit card debt, but I’m not unhappy about it. My husband and I purchased some equipment to start our business, and the credit cards seemed the best option (I have very good interest rates, and no interest on one card for six months). He’s a film maker, and we needed a professional camera (our new baby, pictured above), a laptop computer that could support HD video, and professional editing software. Total – about $10,000 (and that was WITH some great educational discounts). We couldn’t wait to save up for the equipment, as we need it NOW. However, things are going fantastically well and both my husband and I are very pleased with our investment. I don’t use credit cards at all, normally – we just use our debit card which pulls from our checking account. We live very frugally – we don’t go out (why go out when you can stay in, watch movies, eat home-cooked food, and have lots of great sex?), we don’t really drink, and we don’t buy luxury items. We’re going to cancel our TV, since neither of us has the time or inclination to watch it much (and there’s never anything on), which will save us $40/mo. I am a penny pincher with groceries and household items (I love Wal*Mart), and have turned into a compulsive coupon-clipper. :) So even though we now have rent (which I didn’t when I paid off the last batch of cards), and we spend more on gas because of how far we live from our jobs (and, of course, the price increase), I plan to try and drop between $500 and $1,000 a month on the cards and have them paid off in a year or less.

I have officially paid off my last credit card. I haven’t used either of my cards in over 6 months, so I think I’ll be able to maintain the $0 balance that I have now. :) It took a little longer than I anticipated, but I’ve paid them off before the wedding, which was my ultimate goal.

is down to $500. I hope to pay it off by the end of this month. Yay! No credit card debt! I can’t wait.

My second credit card is 2/3 of the way paid off as of today. :)

I just paid off my Capital One card! Woo hoo! So now I only have one credit card and one student loan that still need to be paid off. It feels SO good. My goal is to be rid of the other card debt by the end of September.

I made over $300 at my second job this weekend, and still have two paychecks from my last job coming this month, as well as the $500 I left over from last month’s check. My current full-time job will pay all my living expenses so I can devote all this “extra” money to debts. At this rate, I should have one of my two credit cards paid off, as well as about $1000 dollars in savings, by the end of July (my other card is interest free until April, so I can work on that one more slowly).

The wedding is back on schedule, and we’re house-hunting in earnest.

One school loan GONE! Yay! Now I can put that amount on my other school loan every month, and pay it off almost twice as fast. It feels very, very good. :)